His First Choice

“Yep.” The man didn’t miss a beat as he took the cloth, the plate, and moved back to the sink, which was on the boy’s side of the table.

Lacey had to give him points for letting her sit alone at the table with the boy, as though giving his consent to his son to be friendly with her and letting Levi know that she was friend, not threat.

But he’d been crying. Violently enough to leave stains down his face. Mara, who’d known him since he was three months old, who’d been caring for him all day most days ever since, said there’d been a drastic behavioral change in him.

An alarming change...

“How’d you break your arm?” Lacey asked. He’d brought it up, so it made the question natural enough.

The boy looked down. “I fell.” The words were barely discernible in the mumble that came out.

She leaned forward, wishing she could take that little body into her arms, lay his head on her shoulder and promise him that no one would ever hurt him again.

It was a reaction she hadn’t had since her first years on the job. At least not often. It wasn’t that she didn’t care about each and every child who crossed her path. She did. Enough to keep the distance mandatory for her to do her job and make the hard decisions that would keep them safe.

“Fell how?” she asked when Levi’s chin finally lifted off from his chest.

“Did the hospital call you?” Jeremiah Bridges, wiping his hands on a dish towel, came toward the table.

With a glance at the boy, back at him and then back to Levi, she ignored the question.

“How did you fall, Levi?”

“I dunno. I just fell,” Levi said, then looked to his dad. “Can I go play now?”

With a glance in Lacey’s direction, Jeremiah left the decision up to her. She nodded.

The boy was well kept—was obviously used to washing up after meals, too—and well fed, at least that night. And every day, as well, judging by the lean strength in his four-year-old body as Jeremiah turned the chair and assisted as Levi hopped down from his booster seat.

“No video games,” he said as the boy walked slowly toward the archway. “And don’t forget, no Batman or Superman for another day or two.”

“I know...” The boy’s head hung again. But as Levi passed his dad, Jeremiah held his hand up for a high five and Levi gave him one.

Not the actions of a frightened child.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” Jeremiah asked the boy. And then, with a nod of his head in her direction, he gave the boy a questioning look.

“Oh, yeah,” Levi said and turned to her. “It was nice to meet you, Lacey,” he said. He looked at his dad again. “Did I do it right?”

“Yes, sport, you did it just fine,” Jeremiah said, grinning at Levi. “Now go play for a few minutes.”

The little body was almost at the archway when Levi turned back. “Just until time for ice cream, right?”

“Right.”

Jeremiah’s grin was all for his son, but Lacey caught the tail end of it as he turned back to her. She started to respond before she caught herself.

He was looking at her full on by then. And he’d sobered completely. So had she.

“Tell me about that broken arm.” She kept her tone quiet. She itched for the tablet in her purse. She needed to type about the arm. And when they were done with that, about the cause of those tears.

Kids cried, sometimes daily. Most particularly the little ones. It was a part of life. The testing of boundaries, and the impromptu bursts of emotions that learning right from wrong elicited. Tears were no reason to suspect wrongdoing here.

Still, a vision of those particular streaks on those particular cheeks had burned itself in her mind.

“What’s to tell?” Bridges asked, leaning against the counter with his arms crossed in front of him again. “He fell. And if that’s what this is about, if someone is trying to make something out of the fact that a kid fell and broke his arm, I’d suggest they take a look at...well...” He shrugged. “Even I broke my arm when I was a kid. Boys do that. It’s not a crime.”

The way his eyebrows were drawn—as if he was confused, lost—sent a mixed message, combined with the defensiveness of the rest of his posture.